The alternate domination of one faction over another, sharpened by the spirit of revenge natural to party dissension, which in different ages and countries has perpetrated the most horrid enormities, is itself a frightful despotism. But this leads at length to a more formal and permanent despotism.

Democracy passes into despotism.

If you prick us do we not bleed? If you tickle us do we not laugh? If you poison us do we not die? And if you wrong us shall we not revenge?

For any young democracy, the most difficult but important step is burying the legacy of tyranny and establishing an economy and a government and institutions that abide by the rule of law. Every country faces challenges to the rule of law, including my own.

The whole commerce between master and slave is a perpetual exercise of the most boisterous passions, the most unremitting despotism on the one part, and degrading submissions on the other. Our children see this, and learn to imitate it.

If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy.

Debt is part of the human condition. Civilization is based on exchanges – on gifts, trades, loans – and the revenges and insults that come when they are not paid back.

If you can’t beat them, arrange to have them beaten.

Enlighten the people generally, and tyranny and oppressions of body and mind will vanish like evil spirits at the dawn of day.

Concentration of wealth yields concentration of political power. And concentration of political power gives rise to legislation that increases and accelerates the cycle.

A man that studieth revenge keeps his own wounds green.

Corruption is just another form of tyranny.

I gave ‚em a sword. And they stuck it in, and they twisted it with relish. And I guess if I had been in their position, I’d have done the same thing.

Those wars are unjust which are undertaken without provocation. For only a war waged for revenge or defense can be just.

Certainly, in taking revenge, a man is but even with his enemy, but in passing it over, he is superior; for it is a prince’s part to pardon.

It is not my nature, when I see a people borne down by the weight of their shackles – the oppression of tyranny – to make their life more bitter by heaping upon them greater burdens; but rather would I do all in my power to raise the yoke than to add anything that would tend to crush them.

For more than four decades, the Libyan people have been ruled by a tyrant – Moammar Gaddafi. He has denied his people freedom, exploited their wealth, murdered opponents at home and abroad, and terrorized innocent people around the world – including Americans who were killed by Libyan agents.

This is certain, that a man that studieth revenge keeps his wounds green, which otherwise would heal and do well.

Real liberty is neither found in despotism or the extremes of democracy, but in moderate governments.

In 1979, Iranians carried out an illegitimate act: They overthrew a tyrant that the United States had imposed and supported, and moved on an independent path, not following U.S. orders.

And if you’re horrible to me I’m going to write a song about you and you are not going to like it. That’s how I operate.

A dogmatic belief in objective value is necessary to the very idea of a rule which is not tyranny or an obedience which is not slavery.

The ballot is stronger than the bullet.

Men should be either treated generously or destroyed, because they take revenge for slight injuries – for heavy ones they cannot.

Revenge is an act of passion; vengeance of justice. Injuries are revenged; crimes are avenged.

All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent.

There will be no end to the troubles of states, or of humanity itself, till philosophers become kings in this world, or till those we now call kings and rulers really and truly become philosophers, and political power and philosophy thus come into the same hands.

It’s not tyranny we desire; it’s a just, limited, federal government.

Beauty is a short-lived tyranny.

I have sworn upon the altar of God, eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man.

Although we resolutely supported the armed struggle against Batista’s tyranny, we were, on principle, opposed to any terrorist action that could cause the death of innocent people.

Bad laws are the worst sort of tyranny.

Men ought either to be indulged or utterly destroyed, for if you merely offend them they take vengeance, but if you injure them greatly they are unable to retaliate, so that the injury done to a man ought to be such that vengeance cannot be feared.

Dictatorship naturally arises out of democracy, and the most aggravated form of tyranny and slavery out of the most extreme liberty.

Virtuous people often revenge themselves for the constraints to which they submit by the boredom which they inspire.

I do not deny that I planned sabotage. I did not plan it in a spirit of recklessness nor because I have any love of violence. I planned it as a result of a calm and sober assessment of the political situation that had arisen after many years of tyranny, exploitation and oppression of my people by the whites.

Revenge, lust, ambition, pride, and self-will are too often exalted as the gods of man’s idolatry; while holiness, peace, contentment, and humility are viewed as unworthy of a serious thought.

To refrain from imitation is the best revenge.

Beauty is a short-lived tyranny.

If you lose a big fight, it will worry you all of your life. It will plague you – until you get your revenge.

Kings will be tyrants from policy, when subjects are rebels from principle.

The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.

In taking revenge, a man is but even with his enemy; but in passing it over, he is superior.

Force is the vital principle and immediate parent of despotism.

When the white man governs himself, that is self-government; but when he governs himself and also governs another man, that is more than self-government – that is despotism.

Rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others. I do not add ‚within the limits of the law‘ because law is often but the tyrant’s will, and always so when it violates the rights of the individual.

Revenge is a kind of wild justice, which the more a man’s nature runs to, the more ought law to weed it out.

There are minds so impatient of inferiority that their gratitude is a species of revenge, and they return benefits, not because recompense is a pleasure, but because obligation is a pain.

Oil has become the principal wealth in the hands of the great Yankee transnationals; through this energy source, they had an instrument that considerably expanded their political power in the world.

It is impossible to suffer without making someone pay for it; every complaint already contains revenge.

As President Nixon says, presidents can do almost anything, and President Nixon has done many things that nobody would have thought of doing.

Tyranny naturally arises out of democracy.

To be angry is to revenge the faults of others on ourselves.

The best revenge is to be unlike him who performed the injury.

Tyranny or slavery, born of selfishness, are the two educational methods of parents; all gradations of tyranny or slavery.

A democracy which makes or even effectively prepares for modern, scientific war must necessarily cease to be democratic. No country can be really well prepared for modern war unless it is governed by a tyrant, at the head of a highly trained and perfectly obedient bureaucracy.

From behind the Iron Curtain, there are signs that tyranny is in trouble and reminders that its structure is as brittle as its surface is hard.

It takes two to make a murder. There are born victims, born to have their throats cut, as the cut-throats are born to be hanged.

Of all tyrannies a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive.

We are not to expect to be translated from despotism to liberty in a featherbed.

Despotism can only exist in darkness, and there are too many lights now in the political firmament to permit it to remain anywhere, as it has heretofore done, almost everywhere.